Review: Suspect Zero (2004)

People in the Movie: Aaron Eckhart, Ben Kingsley, Carrie-Anne Moss

Director: E. Elias Merhige

Pigeonhole: Thriller / Mystery / Crime

The Basics: A disgraced FBI agent named Tom Mackelway (Eckhart) is reassigned (after a suspension for misconduct on a prior case) to the Albuquerque, NM field office.  There he becomes entangled in a strange case investigating some murders in which the victims turn out to have been criminals themselves.  Mackelway is contacted by the prime suspect Benjamin O’Ryan (Kingsley) via fax and mail about the cases, and is also sent a large number of missing person flyers, which seemingly are not tied to these murders.  The audience sees O’Ryan engaging in a strange ritual throughout the movie having strange visions while he listens to a tape recording of white-noise and a male voice droning hypnotic sounding instructions.  We later learn this ritual is called “remote viewing” and is an ability that O’Ryan had been trained to use to see other places, times, and events going on all over the world.  O’Ryan uses this ability to track serial killers, and for most of his life has tracked, but has been unable to catch, Suspect Zero, who may be responsible for hundreds of murders – which is why he is attempting to bring Mackelway into the cases – to help him catch this killer.   

Recommendation: It brings an interesting twist to the “hunt for a serial killer” type of film, and I recommend it for that.  Fans of Dexter and Millennium will like this movie.  ‘R’ rating is for violence, language and brief nudity.

My Take: Being a fan of Kingsley and Eckhart is what primarily drew me to see this, especially the idea of the hunt for a “super” serial killer.  This was the first movie for Moss after the Matrix trilogy, so it was nice to see her doing something new.  Harry Lennix, also from the 2^nd and 3^rd Matrix movies was in Suspect Zero, as well.  The film is very good at times, and really offers something new as far as tracking bad guys with O’Ryan’s character, and typically I prefer open ended or unresolved issues at the end of movies, but this time something seemed just a little off.

**spoiler alert** The movie opens with O’Ryan confronting a man in a diner, and eventually killing him, although we do not witness the murder on screen.  O’Ryan intentionally stages the victim’s body in his car just over the state line of New Mexico, so the FBI will get involved with the case, which is how Mackelway gets drawn in, except it appears O’Ryan has been “waiting” for him to arrive all along.  Mackelway then begins receiving mailed packages full of case information about the victim (plus more men which O’Ryan kills along the way), and receiving faxes of missing persons.  O’Ryan eventually reveals he is a “remote viewer” and was part of an FBI program called Project Icarus. He states that he is hunting the ultimate predator, a man who has possibly killed hundreds of kids across America.

Mackelway, with the assistance of his old partner Fran Kulok (Moss) build the case as if O’Ryan is the killer, and that he likely has mental issues – which, he does, but not the problems you might think.  Slowly, as the movie progresses Mackelway realizes O’Ryan is onto something, and that he is, in fact, assisting them, in more ways than one.  Things come full circle as O’Ryan tells Mackelway he has the same remote viewing ability O’Ryan has, and the two of them go to confront Suspect Zero to end his murderous spree of terror.   

Where things seemed just a bit off to me:

- Moss’ character did not seem to be used or developed completely.  It seemed like there was an implication of prior romantic interest or involvement (prior to events unfolding now), but it fell completely flat when it was introduced, plus she made no effort to really assist in the investigation other than to physically “be there”.  Very disappointing.

- O’Ryan’s remote viewing sessions were not explained until later into the film.  If you paid attention to the trailers of the Suspect Zero before seeing it, you would know what was going on, but if you came into the movie “cold” it might seem more like someone having a hallucination and might throw you off a bit.

- The ending – Mackelway kills Suspect Zero, then O’Ryan finally free of the burden of being haunted of the visions of the moment wants it completed with his own death – almost as if he was tied to fate.  Mackelway won’t do it, and Fran seeing a threatening exchange, and still not knowing if O’Ryan was truly a good guy, shoots him.  It did not seem “right” to me.  Plus there was no tie off about if Mackelway was going to assume the serial killer hunting duties with his own ability.  Note: On the DVD the “alternate ending” does tie this up a little better, but it makes no sense why that ending was not part of the theatrical release.

Final Thoughts: Kingsley absolutely drove the movie.  He played the tormented, burned out law enforcement type perfectly.  Yet, he was still able to portray a mentor figure to Mackelway.  He brought these moments to the screen that were just brilliant; there was a moment when he was taking down a particularly nasty individual who had begun to rape a girl, there was such a ferocious, controlled anger, you could feel your own blood boiling anticipating the criminal's demise.  Eckhart was believable, but Kingsley was just awesome.

With good tension at moments and an overall decent story, Suspect Zero is worth checking out.  The fact that the viewer did not actually know if O’Ryan could have been Suspect Zero until deep into the movie really is a credit to the direction.  Keeping the other critical points in mind, this is a film I felt could have had crucial scenes end up on the cutting room floor (whether true or not), for whatever reason, but could have really been improved to a whole other level with about 15-20 more minutes of background, development, and follow through. 

Final Thoughts/ Extras/ For Fun: The DVD has several nice features about “real life” remote viewing…